Synod Draws Priestly and Lay Lobbyists

ROME, Nov. 3—Shortly after 9 o'clock every weekday morning a dozen people from almost as many countries gathered around a square red table in a fourthfloor room near the Piazza Navona here for an hour of intrigue.

The conspirators are the brain trust of a lobbying effort known as Operation Synod, and their objective is the world Synod of Bishops, which held a month‐long meeting here.

Like a can of honey where there are bears, the synod attracted a sizable number of onlookers eager for a piece of the action inside. Their causes range from the ordination of women to condemnation of the ideas of the late evolutionary theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Their tactics varied from discreet news conferences to aggressive buttonholing of bishops in St. Peter's Square.

Despite enormous amounts of time and energy, there is little indication that the lobbyists, individuals and groups, got their messages through.

“The synod is beautifully organized for its own purposes,” said the Rev. Robert Kennedy, one of seven priests who journeyed here to represent the views of the National Federation of Priests Councils in the United States on issues like optional celibacy. “There just doesn't seem to be any way of cracking the shell.”

The reaction of the bishops to the outside pressures was less than enthusiastic.

John Cardinal Dearden, Archbishop of Detroit and leader of the American dele‐, gation, said that “by and large they haven't come up with any new ideas.” One of the American delegates, the Most Rev. Leo C. Byrne, Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, expressing surprise at how few agitators there were, said this was good because “you can't reflect well under pressure.”

The synod, from which public and press were excluded, was established following Ecumenical Council Vatican II (1962–65) as a means of providing the Pope with continuing advice from the world's bishops on important matters.

The themes of the current session — the shrinkage of priesthood and social justice — are among the most controversial issues the church faces—which no doubt contributed to the influx of interested outsiders.

Small Cells in 40 Countries

The most elaborately conceived group is Operation Synod, run by a nucleus of Northern European priests and claiming contact with small cells of Catholics in nearly 40 countries. The idea was to keep in touch with the grass roots and get reactions to convey to the synod fathers.

The project got off to a bad start with a statement criticizing the opening homily by Pope Paul VI as “empty rhetoric.” The Rev. Wim Al, a Dutch leader of the effort, acknowledged that the comment was “a little juvenile.”

Since then Operation Synod, whose leadership seemed to change as excursion tickets ran out, recouped with a number of more thoughtful statements on synod themes. Its leaders acknowledge, though, that they lack enough channels to the bishops to have much effect on the formal deliberations.

Far more successful, in the opinion of observers, was International Documentation on the Contemporary Church, known as IDOC. Founded during Vatican II, IDOC, a permanent organization devoted to circulating important documents throughout the church, set up a special synod operation in the Alicorni Hotel just outside Vatican City.

It sponsors news conferences on topics ranging from the mental health of priests to the situation of Christians in the southern Sudan. Bishops from Singapore to Winnipeg have used its facilities to distribute their speech texts.

Wonien's liberation in the chtirch drew a number of advocates to Rome, including. a 24 ‐ year ‐ old miniskirted teacher from Spain named Maria‐Elena Rojas. She failed — but in a conspicuous manner — to get an audience with Pope Paul to ask his permission to become a priest.

A Brussels based group known as Men and Women in the Church showed up to attack the “typically masculine structures” of the church. Several nuns and representatives of other ferninist groups proved themselves adept at cornering bishops.

Archbishop Byrne noted the other day that the representative of St. Joan's International Alliance in London was particularly skillful and remarked, “She's like a buzzsaw.”

Not all of the pressure groups represent liberal doctrine. Some European traditionalists held their own news conference to protest the very existence of the synod as a “grave attack on the primacy of the Pope.”

Smaller Role for Laymen

Farley Clinton, an American traditionalist, passed out literature to bishops and others in behalf of his causes, which include saying the rosary before every mass and cutting down on the number of laymen in the administration of the church.

Some unidentified conservatives took to the streets and threw paint on the coats of arms of the titular churches of two liberal Cardinals, a, tactic that the Pope deplored as “an impudent act for which there are no words, the indecency of which falls back on its perpetrators.” Someone also smeared the walls of the Alicorni with phrases in Italian such as “IDOC sold out to the devil.”

Many of the lobbyists believe that their presence had symbolic importance even if they could not affect the voting. “We're here to remind the bishops that they can no longer operate in their own fortress,” said the Rev. Frank Bonnike, head of the American priests' delegation.

Some also say that simply being in Rome had its advantages. As a priest remarked while sipping a cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe near St. Peter's: “There are some lovely girls here. It's a good place to give celibacy a lot of thought.”

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A version of this archives appears in print on November 4, 1971, on Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Synod Draws Priestly and Lay Lobbyists. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe